Apple's Scorched-Earth IPhone Fight With Google

In the article "Easter Island's End," Jared Diamond described the steps that led to the deforestation of a subtropical, fertile paradise.

Over a few hundred years, inhabitants used the gigantic palm trees around them as rolling surfaces on which to haul stones; they then used more trees to lever the stones into place on platforms. Competing chieftains built larger statues on larger platforms. Eventually, the last tree was gone and the island was covered only in grasses and shrubs, leading to starvation and even cannibalism. Diamond explains that there was no signal crisis:

"Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic significance. That left only smaller and smaller palm saplings to clear each year, along with other bushes and treelets. No one would have noticed the felling of the last small palm."

The Easter Islanders' incremental march toward disaster is an apt analogy for Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s decision to keep Google Maps off the newly released iPhone 5, the latest of a series of steps toward control by powerful actors over users' online behavior. The question is whether the pattern is clear enough for regulatory authorities to take action....

Continue reading: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-25/apple-s-scorched-earth-iphone-fight-with-google.html